Surf's Up

Surfing is a bit like jobhunting.  Even though there are a lot of you out there, your chances of success or failure come down to your own ability, and a little bit of luck.  It requires a lot of paddling, alone. Far from catching the wave, all the hard work is too often rewarded with a drenching hit of cold water knocking you off the board.

But sometimes, (and this is why people persevere at both sports), you catch a beautiful wave and cruise on top of it all the way into the shore. 

Down at Capitola beach, I was privileged to see three surfers standing parallel to one another on the same wave this week.  I couldn't take a photo (no camera), and the whole thing lasted only a minute.  But trying to find a picture for this post to capture what I saw made me realize how rare it was. 

I wish that I could tell you that the point of my (somewhat tortured) metaphor is that I  have cruised into my own dream job.  Not yet.  But perhaps the three surfers were a harbinger, presaging something good to come.  Three very different opportunities opened up to me this week.  One is with a fascinating startup, which has the typical kinks associated with an early stage company, but has real potential; the second is a traditional consulting role, which wouldn't start for a few months, but which could see the revival in earnest of the Cakewalk company and the third is with a company that I would love to work for, in a field which I know little about.

None of them really fits the mold of what I have sketched in my mind as my "dream job", but perhaps I have painted myself into a corner, by failing to imagine what I could or should do next, simply because I haven't done it before. 

In the six months since I moved west, I have had my ego drenched a couple of times.  But whatever comes next (whether one of these opportunities, or something just around the corner that is better yet), I am looking forward to the exultation which comes with riding the wave.